


Unapologetic

by victoria_anne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: HPFT, F/M, Forgiveness, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 14:03:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7847938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victoria_anne/pseuds/victoria_anne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James swallows his pride.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unapologetic

**For Ysh**

  
“Okay, so here’s the thing,” James says, running a hand through his hair. “I...I think you’re beautiful. And funny. And smart. And… well, I was wondering if... will you come to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?”  
  
Sirius rubs his chin and narrows his eyes in thought, feet propped on the arm of the chair. “No, I don’t think I will,” he says.  
  
James sighs in exasperation. “You’re supposed to say yes.”  
  
“That didn’t deserve a yes.” Sirius places his feet on the floor and leans forward, resting his chin in his hands. They are in the Gryffindor common room, and though it is crowded, James has no fear of being overheard. Not only is it noisy – between Marlene’s high loud laughter and the chirping of Kiara’s new baby owl she insists on showing off - but he knows Lily is studying in the library. “It was lame,” Sirius continues. “Lily won’t say yes. Try again.”  
James glares at this lack of support. Sirius moves his hands to steeple his fingers and bats his eyelashes at James. In a high-pitched voice, he asks, “Something you wanted to ask me, Potter?”  
  
At their feet by the fire, Remus gives a snort without removing his head from behind his book. James glances at him then turns back to Sirius. “Padfoot, you’re not helping.”  
  
Sirius shrugs. “Just be yourself.”  
  
“Because that always works for you?”  
  
Remus gives another snort.  
  
Sirius’ teeth flash in the firelight as he grins. “My track record is better than yours, mate.”  
  
“Yeah, well…”  
  
“You have nothing to fear,” Sirius says with a flippant wave of his hand. “Look at how much you’ve changed since you asked her out last – been at least a week now, I think? You wear your hair parted on the left instead of the right, your glasses are about a millimetre further down your nose…”  
  
“What Sirius is trying to say,” interjects Remus, carefully marking his place in his book before closing it, “is that you _have_ changed, and Lily’s no fool; she’ll have seen it in you.”  
  
“And if she doesn’t,” says Sirius, “I get to add another mark to my bedpost.”  
  
“Yeah about that,” James huffs. “Has it really been twelve times?”  
  
Sirius nods gravely. So does Remus.  
  
James rises from the chair with a sigh and stretches his arms until the joints pop softly. “Alright,” he says, “wish me luck.”  
  
“You don’t need it,” Remus says, opening his book again.  
  
Sirius winks at James. “But good luck… just in case.”  
  
***  
  
James trots down the sixth floor corridor, the library his destination. He rounds a corner and stops short, spying a familiar thin figure, laden with two satchels on either shoulder – one black and one brown. James ducks behind a stone pillar and points his wand at Snape’s back, aiming for the black bag James knows to be his.  
  
“ _Diffindo_ ,” he whispers, but Snape turns around at the same time. James’s spell hits the brown bag on Snape’s left shoulder, and it tears with a satisfying ripping sound – it probably belongs to one of Snape’s wannabe Death Eater friends. Books fall to the ground and ink smashes on the stone, black spreading in a pool around the clutter like blood. Snape lets out an ugly snarl and crouches down to gather everything to him. His gangly legs are tucked unsteadily under him, so when James rushes forward and pushes against his shoulder, Snape falls easily on his backside into the ink.  
  
“Potter!” Snape growls, but James has already disappeared around the corner with a loud laugh.  
  
When James enters the library, Lily is sitting at a desk along the wall, her red hair loose around her shoulders, picking at a thread on her skirt. The surface of the desk is empty before her, free from the wall of books and parchment she usually hides behind. James throws himself into the seat opposite her and she looks up, startled.  
  
“Oh. James,” she says with none of the enthusiasm he had half excepted, half hoped for, but a small thrill goes through him all the same at the sound of his name on her lips.  
  
He flashes her a grin, hand going automatically to his hair. “Where’s your army?” he asks with a pointed look at the desk.  
  
Lily sighs and leans back in her chair, raising her arms in a stretch. Her shirt rises enough to show a hint of the smooth skin of her stomach. James swallows and runs a hand through his hair again. “Severus is meant to be meeting me with my bag, but he’s running late.”  
  
James’s insides lurch like he’s missed a step and he abruptly lowers his hands. “Er… is your bag brown?”  
  
Lily narrows her eyes. “Yes.”  
  
“Hippogriff shit,” James says under his breath. He glances nervously over his shoulder toward the library entrance, but Snape is nowhere to be seen.  
  
“What?” Lily asks, but she sounds as if she doesn’t really want to know the answer.  
  
James turns back to her, unable to meet her green gaze. “Oh – nothing. I, er… I’ll talk to you later.”  
  
Lily watches, dazed, as James rises from his seat and dashes from the library. She shakes her head in bewilderment at this odd behaviour – he’s never been this easy to get rid of before – and pulls her wand out of her pocket, polishing it with half a mind. Where _is_ Severus?  
  
As if on cue, Severus enters the library. He spots her and walks over, clutching something to his chest. His black hair has fallen over his face, but she can still see the pinkness in his cheeks and the brightness of his dark eyes.  
  
“Hey,” she greets him. He dumps the contents in his arms onto the desk, and the smile slides from her face as she recognises the remains of her bag and belongings. “What the heck happened?”  
  
“Potter,” Severus says bitterly by way of explanation.  
  
Lily groans as she gingerly picks up her Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook, black ink dripping from it like rain water. She siphons it with her wand, and Severus watches her do so, a slight furrow between his dark eyebrows. Lily glances at him out of the corner of her eye. “What is it?”  
  
He looks down at his hands, entwined in his lap. “I was wondering if… you’ve forgiven me yet for the other day.”  
  
“You haven’t apologised,” she replies tersely.  
  
Severus doesn’t say anything for a long time. Neither does Lily. As she fixes the wreckage of her bag, she thinks back on the incident he’s referring to, and shudders as she remembers Mary’s scream, Avery’s awful laugh and how Severus just stood there and watched. Lily has nearly finished mending her bag when he says quietly, “I’m sorry.”  
  
But Avery’s callous face as he brandishes his wand is at the forefront of Lily’s mind. “That’s not good enough anymore, Severus.”  
  
Severus raises a shoulder as if adjusting too-tight robes. He says to his fingernails, “Are you going to forgive me?”  
  
Lily puts down her wand and wraps her arms around herself. “Are you going to join the Death Eaters?”  
  
Severus looks up. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. There’s a tightness around his eyes that make him look weary beyond his years, and her heart contracts at the sight. But she has to do this. She has no choice.  
  
Tears prick the back of Lily’s eyes. “I… I believe you’re sorry for the other day, so I forgive you for that, but only because it’s the last time.”  
  
Severus blinks. “What do you mean?”  
  
Slowly, Lily slides her now-clean books into her now-mended bag. She can’t meet his eyes. “I can’t see you anymore, Sev,” she whispers. “Not if you refuse to understand how wrong this all is.”  
  
“But I –”  
  
Lily shakes her head and stands up, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “Goodbye, Severus.”  
  
She leaves the library without looking back.  
  
***  
  
It isn’t long after James returns to the common room when Lily does too. He breathes a sigh of relief at seeing her bag in one piece. With no harm done, there’s no way she’ll refuse him now.  
  
“Finally,” he says to himself.  
  
Lily has sat in a chair in the corner, slumped low and looking sad. Has Snape done or said something to make her feel like this? James makes a mental note to confront him later. For now, he approaches her and crouches beside the chair, balancing on the balls of his feet. “Hey. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” he says. In his position, the late afternoon sun streams through the window across his face and he squints against it.

Lily crosses her arms over her chest, her jaw set. “Oh, really?”  
  
She looks as if she’s bracing herself for battle. James adjusts his glasses and shrugs at this behaviour. “If you’re not doing anything this weekend, I was wondering if –”  
  
She holds up a hand, cutting him off. “That’s not what you’re meant to say.”  
  
“It’s… not?”  
  
She shakes her head, red hair bouncing. “You broke my bag.”  
  
_Crap_. “I didn’t do that!” he says indignantly, but a hot flush begins to creep up his neck.  
  
Her green eyes flash. “Severus said you did.”  
  
“He’s lying,” James says immediately. “Are you really going to believe everything he says? He hates me, you know that.”  
  
“He has reason,” Lily replies, arching an eyebrow.  
  
“Being a git is not a reason.”  
  
Lily throws her hands up with a frustrated groan. With her hair floating around her face, lit by the orange glow of the sunset, she looks more beautiful than ever. “So my bag broke all on its own, did it?”  
  
“Yes. I mean – no. I was trying to do… something and Snape moved to put your bag in front of him, saving his own.” He rocks back on his heels, satisfied.  
  
“You’re such an idiot,” Lily says, and rises from her seat to storm up the stairs to the girls dormitory.  
  
James straightens slowly and walks over to where Sirius, Remus and Peter are waiting in the opposite corner. He throws himself into an armchair, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes.  
  
Sirius clears his throat. “So how did it go?” he asks.  
  
Peter peers timidly over James’s shoulder. “She looked mad.”  
  
James shoots him a glare, returning his glasses. “Yes, thank you, Captain Observant.”  
  
“Nice work on the Severing Charm, by the way,” says Sirius, bringing a long lock of hair in front of his eyes and examining the ends.  
  
James retorts, “Well obviously not. I thought the bag was Mulciber’s or something.”  
  
Remus folds his hands in his lap. “If you just said sorry…”  
  
“It wasn’t my fault,” James insists. “If the slimy git hadn’t moved…”  
  
“Oh, please,” Remus says, giving James a piercing look, “it was a spell from your wand. She’s not going to say yes to you for anything until you apologise.”  
  
James stares sulkily at the floor. He may not be the smartest owl in the flock, but he knows Remus is right; Lily won’t go out with him unless he apologises. As Sirius would so eloquently put it, he needs to grow a pair.  
  
***  
  
When Lily finally returns to the common room, eyes swollen and stomach growling, the room is dark and deserted. She hugs herself, a shiver running through her despite the warmth of her dressing gown. She knows she’d done the right thing with Severus, but it still hurts to know she’s lost a friend.  
  
“Ev – Lily?” says a familiar voice, making her jump.  
  
James’s messy hair appears before the rest of him does, peering over the back of a chair by the cold fireplace. Lily relaxes her shoulders fractionally, but doesn’t say anything.  
  
“You weren’t at dinner,” he says, chewing on something. “Everything okay?”  
  
Lily tightens her dressing gown around her. “Nothing for you to worry your big head over.”  
  
The corner of his mouth twitches. Without a word, he holds up a plate of sandwiches. Lily begins to shake her head, but her stomach protests. With a sigh, she sits on the floor beside him and grabs a sandwich. For a few minutes, they sit in a silence not even the sound of their chewing can break. Then James clears his throat. She looks up.  
  
“Look, Lils,” he says, turning a piece of crust over in his hands. “It _was_ me that broke your bag. I was aiming for Snape’s, and I-I know it was wrong, and… I’m sorry.”  
  
Lily wants to tease him, to joke about how _James Potter_ actually knows how to use the word ‘sorry’, but she doesn’t. Right now she doesn’t have the energy, and James’ eyes are wide and vulnerable behind his glasses. Something stirs in her stomach that has nothing to do with the sandwiches.  
  
“I forgive you,” she says quietly.  
  
His face breaks into a wide grin, and her stomach backflips again.  
  
“So… you’ll go out with me?” he asks. “To Hogsmeade this weekend?”  
  
“No,” she says.  
  
James’s face falls. “Oh…”  
  
The corner of Lily’s mouth twitches upwards. “I won’t go out with you because I need to study for the Herbology quiz we have on Monday. But I could really use someone to test me…?”  
  
The grin is back. “I’d be delighted,” he says. He stands up and brushes the crumbs from his grey pyjama bottoms before reaching down to offer her a hand. She takes it, and James pulls her to her feet.  
  
“Until then,” he says softly, and leans in to kiss her cheek.  
  
The touch of his lips on her skin is enough to send her heart galloping and cause fire to burn in her veins. She watches him disappear up the boys dormitory steps two at a time. Did her body really just respond to Potter? Why doesn’t she feel revolted? Maybe he was finally beginning to change. She raises a hand to her cheek. For that, he’s allowed to be unapologetic.


End file.
